By Jakob Schiller at Wired:
Here’s a recipe for success: Take two of the hottest, fastest-growing websites in the world and mash them together.
That’s exactly what Pek Pongpaet, 35, and Brandon Leonardo, 28, did this week when they launched Pinstagram, which uses the famous waterfall layout of Pinterest to create a platform for viewing your Instagram photos on the web.
“I think Pinstagram fills an important void because Instagram never focused on the desktop experience,” says Pongpaet.
There are plenty of third-party apps that allow you to view Instagram photos on the web, but we suspect that none will have the success of Pinstagram, which has already made quite a splash, with thousands visiting the site. Aditya Herlambang, an iOS developer, has also just agreed to put efforts towards building an iPad app for the service.
Pongpaet and Leonardo say the idea for the project was actually kind of a joke that only came to them last Friday. Over lunch the pair, who are also co-founders of the startup Tapisto.com, said they were joking about the famous “X for Y” pitches that often happen when companies are pitching venture capital firms. Take Spotwag, for example, which could be called an “AirBnB for dogs.”
They were playing around with combinations and came to the pairing of “a Pinterest for Instagram.”
“We thought it would be hilarious to combine them because they are two of the hottest and most valuable companies on the planet,” Pongpaet says.
While it remained a joke for a while, Leonardo says that he saw something click in Pongpaet, and later that day the wheels started turning.
“The idea really took hold of me,” says Pongpaet.
The next morning Pongpaet got in touch with Leonardo.
“He was like, ‘Dude, you’ll never believe what I built,’” says Leonardo.
It turns out Pongpaet had spent a chunk of the night developing their concept and already had a functional site that had brought their idea to life.
“I’m sort of a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy,” Pongpaet says.
After Pongpaet’s original draft the pair continued working and on Wednesday morning the site went live.
So far they say the response has already been overwhelming. They haven’t been contacted by Pinterest or Instagram, but all the feedback they’ve gotten has been positive.
They’re not sure what the future holds, but say they want to continue working on it and see where it goes.
“We enjoy using it ourselves and want to continue to provide an optimized way for users to view their Instagram feed on the web,” Leonardo says.
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